The Real Richie Rich

So I just saw The Social Network and I would have to say that all of the reviews are right. It is really good, and to be honest, I didn't know how to feel going into it. I was sure it was going to be a pretty interesting story (I mean, the guys is the worlds youngest billionaire), but I also felt like it was a little too soon. It was sort of like when VH1 had I Love the 90's in 2004. Too soon? Yeah I sort of felt like it it then, and it kind of felt that way again in this movie. As soon as it ended, I was sitting through the credits (I always do) and I asked my friends, "So when is the sequel coming out?" It is kind of like when a band releases a greatest hits only to release another album or 10 in the following years. The guy is only 26 years old, there is the potential to have a bunch more interesting things happen to him. I am only a couple years younger, but I certainly wouldn't want my biopic to come out yet. Granted, I haven't done anything to warrant a biopic and maybe he didn't want the movie to be made now either. Based on this article it seems as though he didn't. What is fantastic about the timing however is that it resonates so much with people of my age group. Facebook was still pretty new when I came to college. In fact, my freshman year of college was Facebook's first full year of operation. Back then it was called The Facebook and it was only your school. The whole time I was watching I couldn't shake the feeling that the movie was in some way about me, us collectively who had/continue to use Facebook so avidly. I mean a major idea, or even character, in the film is the growing masses who use and then become addicted to Facebook, much like crack...

The acting was surprisingly great. Jesse Eisenberg was phenomenal. He really played Zuckerberg as a deep character simultaneously hiding and being ruled by his at times childish emotions. He is both a petulant child and wunderkind (I have always wanted to use that word). I felt especially dumb when he was explaining how easy it was to hack into Harvard's system and write a program. It was kind of like Nick Burns. The only other movie I have seen him in was Zombieland, which was totally awesome. He actually showed some real versatility from his character in Zombieland. I sort of figured he was just another Michael Cera, but after The Social Network I don't think anyone would think that again. Andrew Garfield, who played Eduardo Saverin, also put up a memorable multidimensional performance. It was also really cool that they had Armie Hammer play the Winklevoss twins. I had a tiny inkling one of the first times they/he appeared on the screen that it was one guy, after all, what are the odds that they would find blond Adonis identical twins? After a few moments though, I thought it was indeed possible so kudos to the CG team for really coming through there. Also kudos to Hammer who did each scene twice and he played the Winklvoss's as two distinct characters and not a stock set of identical twins who finish each other's sentences...although I think they did do that once.

There are a few other odds and ends that I want to talk about before I head into my big grand finale of a conclusion. First was the music. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (whom I had never heard of before but has a pretty sweet name) made an awesome score. It was both compelling and haunting when it needed to be. It is also worth mentioning that I am interested in seeing if this film in anyway effects Facebook usage. Is it just sort of like a two hour add for Facebook, or will people be turned off by Zuckerberg's actions and not want to use the site as much. It should also be noted that this is indeed a film, so its always hard to tell how much is true and what is there to put asses in seats. One of the movie's producers even went so far as to say, "there is no such thing as the truth." I think that is kind of an idiotic thing to say. There was a truth, it might not be what sells the movie, and it might not even be what I would want to see but I would argue that it is there so take that for what it is worth.

Now, it didn't strike me until a few days later, but The Social Network kind of fits in with the likes of There Will Be Blood and Citizen Kane. Now The Social Network is really good, but I don't think it is quite as good as either of those movies...that would maybe be blasphemy. It does have a lot in common though. A man in his younger years goes into business for himself and makes boatloads of money. Check. This same young man ends up tanking the only real human relationship that he has, essentially setting him adrift in his own man-made ocean of greenbacks. Check. Due to his own self destruction, the now wildly filthy rich old man becomes a hermit in his own mansion. Well, it hasn't happened yet, but as I said, "When is the sequel coming out?"

Thanks for reading, and keep watching.

Dolph Lundren Still Doesn't Speak English?

Sorry to everyone who follows this blog closely and hotly anticipates every post, languishing when it takes me a while to get around to writing another. I know it had to be pretty rough on both of you because I have been slacking. I started a new job a couple weeks ago (What? writing this blog doesn't pay your bills?) and I have been adjusting to a new work schedule, etc. Anyway, lets get right down to it.

Last weekend I saw The Expendables, and before I say anything else, I first need to acknowledge that it was a VUI. That's right, a Viewing while Under the Influence. I must admit that I imbibed before...and during the film (my girlfriend has a big purse). If anyone reading this held me to higher standards (sorry Ma) in terms of going into every film with a clear head or just in terms of not drinking in unsanctioned drinking areas then apologize. Its definitely not a very sincere apology because I don't really regret it, but if it makes you feel at all better then that's good I suppose. After all, beer is great and so are movies. The combination has the potential to be nothing short of transcendent (thank you thesaurus.com). This is not to say that I do this frequently. I would say its an occurrence that happens once in a blue moon, and I just looked up how often that is, and trust me, its way less frequently than that. What is interesting about the experience is that I had planned for weeks to get together with particular friends, drink enough beer to have a strong buzz, and then go see The Expendables. What is it about this movie that made me want to see it while under the influence? Probably it was the fact that I knew that it was going to be a senseless money maker with a cadre of stars, and the only way that I was willing to give Sly and company the still as yet unripened fruits of my new labor was to do so in a drunken stupor. The fact of the matter is that some part of me still wanted to see it, and I guess I knew that drinking wouldn't impair my understanding of one-liners and explosions.

My thoughts on the actual film were mixed. The editing was pretty bad at times...and I really shouldn't even be able to notice that. It did have some excellent action sequences, and some big bangs, which always excites the dumbest part of our brains. It just could have been more, at least you would think so. All of these actions stars have winners under their belts, but this was a split decision at best. What I really feel like doing is just commenting on some of the actors and how they are in the movie, and because this is my blog, that's exactly what I am going to do. There are going to be A BUNCH OF SPOILERS IF YOU KEEP READING!!!! BE WARNED!!!!

Dolph Ludngren: This guys still doesn't speak english?! Rocky 4 came out years ago! All of his lines were awesome in that movie and short...which is clearly the way his lines need to be kept. Anyway, he kind of sucked in this movie. He was a lot like this giant emotionless automaton. He totally should have been dead and when we returned at the end it was totally stupid, but I suppose that is not his fault becuase he didn't write the movie...I'm looking at you Sly. He surely couldn't have with his seemingly basic knowledge of the english language. He did blow a guy in half with a grenade launcher though, and then laughed about it which I guess is pretty sweet.

Randy Couture: Terrible, I mean really terrible acting. Usually I don't sit in a theater and think, "Wow, this guys is really a terrible actor." I was actually caught off guard by how bad he really was. I mean, I wasn't really expecting anything much because he's not an actor, but this really surpassed my expectaions...in terms how poor of an actor he is. What was kind of cool is that they had him do some hand to hand combat and he used his MMA experience in the moves he did, like grabs throws, etc.

Jet Li: He provided the comic relief, which is cool considering his limited mastery of the English language. His Gort-like costar would not have been able to pull this off. He does some alright martial arts and is part of a pretty excellent chase scene but thats about it.

Sly Stallone: Starred, wrote, and starred in The Expendables. Not terrible considering he did all that. If you compare him to the likes of Clint Eastwood, who does the same thing, you would have to say that this pales in comparison, but it wasn't all bad. I mean, he was pretty good, but I found myself laughing at a lot of his lines...that was sort of predictable I suppose though. It seems though that Sly isn't that great of a director. Some of the Rocky movies are great, but none are as good of a film as Rocky...which he didn't direct. What was most memorable about him in this film is that he is starting to look like a male Joan Rivers.

Jason Statham: He probably puts forth the strongest acting performance in this film. Not that it was really all that difficult, but still. I have to say as well, he is pretty good in every movie I have seen him in, and he is in some movies that are really awesome: The Transporter, Crank, Crank 2, Death Race. When it comes down to it, Jason Statham is pretty awesome. I love that he is a balding action hero.

Micky Rourke: Not his best performance, but I stand by my statement that I wish that Mickey Rourke was in every movie.

Terry Crews: How did he sneak in this movie? My theory is that he just showed up on the set and everyone was like, "Yeah, I've seen this guy before in something. And he is pretty jacked. lets just give him a machine gun that shoots exploding projectiles and that will be his character." I liked him, and I thought that he was pretty good, but I can't think of a single movie that he was the star of. And yes, I ended that previous sentence with a preposition.

Ok, thats enough. The Expendables was fair. It seems like it was stuck in the middle or like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. It could have better and been really enjoyable. It could have been worse and been enjoyable too because it would have been hilarious. It did have one of the greatest gems ever caught on film though. I never thought I would get the chance to see Bruce Willis ask The Governator and Sly Stallone "What? Are you two going to start sucking eachother's dicks now?" I would say you could probably skip the movie, but if you watch it while throwing back a few its not a total loss.

Thanks for reading and keep watching.

Fire and Ice: Excellent Poster, Weak Follow Through

My comments on Ralph Bakshi's 1983 animated film Fire and Ice will be brief. Fitting considering the film comes in at a terse 81 minutes. What is most incredible is that at times the film actually feels like it is dragging. The entire movie is shorter than an episode of Saturday Night Live and it still feels like it drags! I can confidently say that this is due to the fact there are huge sections of the movie (if there even can be huge sections in a movie where yawning can cause you to miss 1/4-1/3 of the film) with little to no dialogue. Granted sometimes the subhumans' screeches were kind of cool, but still. Bakshi must have been thinking to himself, "Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good movie with dialogue?" Not terrible logic if your film is perfectly good. Unfortunately this is not a claim that Fire and Ice can make.

The film opens with a pretty cool monologue setting up the story. There is an evil ice queen who has a son and trains him in the dark arts (ice). This pushes everybody south to this generous king who has a castle on a volcano (fire). It pretty much goes down hill from there. The main character, Larn (seriously?), is forgettable. He has a pretty sweet braid/mullet thing going on, but he doesn't really do anything. He spends most of the movie just running around...seriously. In fact, he doesn't even really need to be in the movie. I will repeat that statement so the implications can settle in: The main character doesn't really need to be in the movie. Then there is the female lead Teegra or Tygra (its not really important). Every scene she is on screen it is basically animated soft core porn. She wears little more than a g-string and a couple of gossamer triangles of fabric to cover her ample assets. Knowing that the film was rotoscoped makes me wonder what the actual woman looked like because the disparity would be interesting. Also, at no point in the film did she wear any type of footwear , which I acknowledge is dumb to let bother me, but still, she was running through the forest and over rocky crags and ON A GLACIER!

The one bright spot is this dude:

Yeah, look at that badass. His name is Darkwolf, which I guess is kind of awesome. I believe in the preview they describe him as"mysterious". He is definitely that. Why does he wear a wolf (I am assuming) pelt on his head? Where did he come from? Why does he keep saving Larn? Why does he hate Nekron (the bad guy with a classic bad guy name) so much? Yes, mysterious is one way to describe him, but I would probably use a different word: excellent. Basically every time this guy comes on the screen, he lets out a totally eardrum shattering primal yell. Then it goes into a slow motion sequence of him just totally bringing the hammer down (or in his case the axe) on anybody who gets in his way. That's just how Darkwolf rolls. He gets into some sort of crazy battle rage (for reasons unknown) and just gut slices or brains everybody around him. Another interesting thing about his fight with Nekron is that he is inexplicably immune to Nekron's magic. Maybe that's why he wears the pelt on his head. More likely he is just too much of a hardass berserker for it to have any effect on him. Why couldn't this guy be the main character?

Anyway, the rotoscoping is pretty cool. If you don't know anything about it you should read the wikipedia article that I linked to above. It worked really well in this film. Bakshi utilizes this same process in his version of Lord of the Rings and in Wizard, but to be honest, in those movies it kind of makes me sick. In this movie what it does is allow the animators to capture movement in a very realistic manner. This film and Disney's Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs are two of the best examples of what I am going to call "realistic rotoscoping." If you want to sort of see the opposite of that and how interesting and artistic rotoscoping can be you should check out 2001's Waking Life, but fair warning, half the people in the room will hate it and the other half will think that it is sweet. Hopefully you will be in the latter camp (I am so you will be in good company).

So yeah, I didn't really like Fire and Ice all that much. Maybe my expectations were too high because the poster is so promising. I was kind of hoping for a lost gem or something. The preview made it look sweet. I mean there definitely were some cool parts. It shouldn't really be too hard with a jacked guy with an axe, a scantily clad princess, and some big beasties. But with a really weak story line and really weak characters, (save Darkwolf obviously) it fell short. The rotoscoping was really good, but it wasn't enough to carry the film. Oh yeah, one more thing. At the end the generous king has his minions pull this lever to overflow the volcano and help destroy the glacier, which they already established was pretty far away. So basically everything at the end gets covered in searing hot, face melting lava. What?! Where is everyone going to live?! Terrible idea.

Sorry I lead you astray. My comments weren't all that brief, but if you got this far I guess you didn't hate it so you're welcome.

Thanks for reading and keep watching.

Paper Heart = Hard to Classify.

Last week I watched Paper Heart. It is a movie unlike any other that I have seen before in terms of genre. It is kind of a mock documentary (or mockumentary of you will) but only kind of because it is very different from other films of that ilk. The first thing that sets if apart is that it is kind of a romantic comedy. This is very different from say the straight comedy of Best in Show or any of the other Christopher Guest gems. Similarly it is quite different from horrors like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield. But the thing that really sets Paper Heart apart (rhyme!) was the blurring of the line between fact and fiction. Granted, that is sort of the idea with a mockdoc (that's right I said it) but this was a little different, and it felt that way.

I did a little research into the film (translation: I looked it up on Wikipedia...get used to it) and the idea for the film started with Charlyne Yi wanting to make a documentary about her disbelief in love. The film's director, Nicholas Jasenovec, then thought it was a good idea, but would be even better if there was a fictional story within the film. That fictional story is a love story between Yi and Michael Cera. So lets review really quickly. Charlyne Yi has trouble with the concept of love, so she does interviews with people all over the U.S. about love. Then Yi, as an actress, starts a relationship with Cera,who is playing himself. Thinking about this at length causes there to be a little bump on the top of my head. That bump grows and grows until the top finally erupts in a magnificent volcanic display of confusion, while trails of wanting-to-understand boil over the sides. Ok, that is a bit dramatic, but the point is that Yi is an interviewer for the documentary who doesn't believe in love. Simultaneously she is playing a character (who happens to be herself) who doesn't believe in love but is in a relationship. The trouble for me stems from where one ends and the other begins. This is compounded by the fact that Cera is acting and playing himself, while there are a host of other actors, Seth Rogan and Dimitri Martin especially, who seem to be giving honest interviews instead of acting. There is one scene in LA at a party where both interviews are conducted and the characters Yi and Cera first meet. While watching the film, these two almost conflicting aspects flow together seamlessly, but in review it is a much more complex piece of work. Kudos to Nick Jasenovec for piecing the two together so well. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Nick the director appears on screen and is also a character in the film...played by Jake Johnson...which I didn't know until I watched the credits...phew!

The film also has a lot of feeling, or as my Grandma would say,"Schmaltz". This came not so much from the awkward "acting" that is so synonymous with "indie" films (I will probably have a rant about "indie" films soon enough) but from the genuine stories people told about love. The divorcee in Nashville who said that a vision of his ex-wife saved him from a frigid watery death. The biologist in Lubbock that said that there is some magic to love that goes beyond biological chemistry. The Oklahoma City couple that was married in high school and told the lovely story about the birth of their 2nd child. The gay couple in New York, who my some what liberal sensibilities had me hoping for. All of these peoples' true stories were heartwarming. They made me feel like I should have watched this movie with my girlfriend because she probably would have thought it was romantic of me to think of it...or maybe she would have just thought that all the guys in the movie were decidedly more romantic than me.

I'll bet that shooting the film was pretty easy. They probably just said to a few cameramen, "Here take these shoulder cams make sure that there aren't too many shots of Yi and Cera that are totally still." Here again an "Indie" film aesthetic, which has bled over into more mainstream film. All and all most of the shots in the film were forgettable, with a few exceptions. The silhouette shot at sundown on the beach was great, as was the scene from the poster where Charlyne and Michael try to escape the prying cameras. There was also a pretty hilarious juxtaposition in Las Vegas of a strip joint across the street from a wedding chapel where they conducted interviews. What was really fantastic were the crude puppet sequences. The majority of the puppets were made of paper (get it? Paper Heart?), wire, and cloth. This simple aesthetic juxtaposed to the mastery of the mise-en-scene of these scenes was great.

Paper Heart was a film that made me both think and feel. I find that this is kind of a rarity. Many movies are enjoyable because they make you feel something. They can be heartwarming like Rudy, terrifying like Paranormal Activity (another mockumentary), or any other feeling or emotion or combination there of. As a side note, I just tried to watch the preview for Paranormal Activity 2 by myself in dark room...I got about 5 seconds in and called it a day. Feel free to laugh at my expense, I would probably do the same to you if the shoe were on the other foot. On the other hand, other movies like Inception (although maybe not a great example because it invoked some serious anxiety) or The Inside Man are great because they stimulate your mind, and in the end you respect and appreciate the amount of thought that went into the film. If a movie can do both, it should be considered a success on all fronts.

Thanks for reading and keep watching.

Sometimes ya feel like a Schmuck

Yesterday, I saw Dinner for Schmucks. I am not going to write all that much about it because to be honest, the film really doesn't warrant that. There were some funny parts, but I found myself trying, dare I say, forcing myself to laugh. Generally, when I go into a comedy I try to laugh a good amount, even if parts aren't super funny. Maybe I am trying to give the film the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I just really want it to be funny. Maybe I am a happy-go-lucky kind of guy who just wants everyone to have a good time. Or maybe, just maybe I feel like I am owed a funny movie due to the at times outrageous prices of movie theater tickets. Whatever the case, I really wanted Dinner for Schmucks to be good. I know its not fair to go into a movie with high expectations, but films are not made in a vacuum. I guess if you walked up to the movie theater, had never heard of any of the movies they were showing, and payed for a ticket and you got a ticket to a random show, then and only then could you say: "Yeah I didn't really have any expectations."

Maybe I didn't even want it to be all that good, I just really wanted to like it. I will probably explain the difference in a later post. It sort of fell victim to not having any secret winners that weren't in the preview. After all, Steve Carell is hilarious. He has been great in every movie in recent memory and is consistently hilarious in The Office. In Dinner for Schmucks he sort of just played a crazier but less funny Michael Scott. Bit of a let down. When it comes to Paul Rudd, I can't really say that he was bad, he was just sort of a filler guy. He generally plays the straight man (in terms of a comedy duo, not his orientation...which is usually heterosexual anyway) but he generally still has a bunch of funny jokes. I don't know if the script didn't have many written for him or if he just wasn't on his game for ad libs, but I can't remember a single funny line he had...and I saw the movie last night! This is a huge bummer for me because of all the actors in Hollywood, I most want to hang out with Paul Rudd because he seems like a normal guy...but a funny normal guy who would want to hang out with me. Like if he ever read this blog he would see that I wanted to be his friend and he would shoot me an email or something (he will never read this blog).

There were a couple of bright spots. First of all was the emergence (for me at least) of Stephanie Szostak. I had never seen or heard of her previously (she doesn't even have a wikipedia page which calls onto question her actual existence). She wasn't all that stretched as the female lead, but she is totally gorgeous and has a nice accent (which I assume is real). Also, Jemaine Clement is pretty funny. Its nice to see that he can play a character aside from just being his awkward, funny musician self.

The one thing that I took away most from seeing Dinner for Schmucks is at one point it made me so uncomfortable that I literally wanted to get up and walk out of the movie theater. I mean, the scene was kind of funny, but literally it was so painful. There was a huge knot in my stomach, I kept putting my face in my hands (similar to Rudd on the poster at the top, but I got more facial coverage with my hands), and I couldn't stop myself from audibly moaning in the theater more than once. I am not really sure if this is good or bad, but it certainly was memorable, which is more than can be said for the rest of the film.

Thanks for reading and keep watching.

Mad Movie Title Tirade

Last week I saw Inception, Christopher Nolan’s “I-want-to-make –something-between-Batman-movies” movie. It ended up being a lot more than just a filler project for Nolan (I suppose I should have guessed this considering it starred Leonardo DiCaprio, whose film choices have been impeccable of late) and might possibly be the most original heist film I have ever seen. Granted it was a little bit convoluted at the end and probably warrants another watching (which wouldn’t be a problem as the quality of the film also warrants said viewing) but all told it was really enjoyable; well written, acted, shot, etc. And while Inception was great and had a lasting impression on me, there was something else that I experienced at the theater that is causing me to put ink to paper, or fingers to keys to “Print” button to ink to paper as the case may be. That something was my experience with the previews.

Let me preface the rest of this treatise by saying that I genuinely enjoy watching the previews before my chosen film. I always leave for the theater with plenty of time to view the trailers, and if I enter the theater mid trailer I am a little bit bummed. I actually go to Apple’s website pretty consistently to watch the movie trailers that they have on the site, and I don’t even own a Mac. I have this semi-irrational fear that Apple know that I am checking their site without using a Mac and they are going to hit the secret remote kill switch in my ipod, but that is neither here nor there.

So I am sitting in the theater, awaiting my little pre-movie treat, and then the advertisements start, which is something all of us are used to but we can all remember a time when they were not part of the movie going experience. I sort of just talk through them with my friends and then my moment comes, the previews start and the thing I have been waiting for that comes before the movie I have been waiting for begins. The screen turns that familiar shade of green, telling me in white lettering that this preview is suitable for all ages. The first preview begins. George Clooney is working in some sort of warehouse or tool shed or something. He has a gun. He is putting together said gun. There is a priest. He and Clooney are talking. He seems to be trying to bring Clooney, who appears to be some sort of assassin, back to God. The preview ends with the title: The American. I audibly sigh and say in a muted but incredulous voice, “What?! It’s called The American?!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ywmoXZwkA0 There is something intrinsically dramatic about calling a movie The _______ (fill in the blank), so to be taken seriously the movie better deliver. Perhaps more importantly, the trailer better deliver because if you are going to über dramatically say the title at the end of the preview and the trailer wasn’t excellent, it’s going to seem like a joke, which it did. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything about the movie that was American or patriotic, which the title would no doubt lead you to believe. I am assuming that Clooney is an American in a foreign country, but come on, that’s pretty weak. I looked it up, and the film is based off of a book entitled A Very Private Gentleman. That’s a way better title! Why couldn’t you just call that movie that?!

Whatever, that preview is over now. My friends have a little chuckle at my genuine disgust. The next trailer starts. It’s a bank robbery, cool. A woman is taken hostage and let go. She seems to have PTSD. She starts a relationship with Ben Affleck and they are in Boston (predictable). Turns out Affleck is one of the bank robbers that kidnapped her, but she doesn’t know because he was wearing a mask. This is weak, but the amount of shooting and stuff blowing up in the preview keeps my attention. There is a quote about there being “over 300 bank robberies in Boston every year” which seems pretty high but whatever, and that “Most of these professionals live in a square mile neighborhood called Charlestown.” There is some more shooting set to a dramatic score and then, BAM, the title: The Town. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ7wcayQQLQ This time I say nothing and just throw my arms up. My friends bust out in laughter. Are they serious?! The Town?! I mean, this preview seemed pretty interesting, aside of the ridiculously improbable love story, and then they had to go and give it the stupidly vague title The Town. Granted I was already soured by the title of the last trailer that was so dramatic I have to go out and see it, but it seems to me that they called have just called the movie “Charlestown” and it could be taken a little more seriously. “The Town” is so vague, and the movie doesn’t even seem to be about a town! At least M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village was about a village! Here again, I looked up, The Town is based on a novel entitled Prince of Thieves…sigh.

Thanks for reading and keep watching.

Introduction

So this is my very first blog post. I have been thinking about it for a while, and have had friends tell me I should start one. Probably because I am so awesome...or so modest. Either way, I was reluctant because there are already about 732 billion blogs (rough estimate) on the blogosphere...ugh, gross. Furthermore, this blog is going to be about movies, or films if you prefer that more academic term, and of those 732 billion blogs roughly 1/3 are about said topic. I basically just figured no one would read it, even if it was good...which it will be. Anyway, I came to the conclusion that it would be good practice and would help me to stay sharp. I wouldn't want that Bachelor's in International Film and Media Studies to go to waste after all.

That brings me to my next point. I graduated in 2008, not the best time to graduate, unless of coarse you planned to live in your parents basement playing ping pong by yourself and yelling upstairs to mom to ask for a drink. In that case you were all set. Getting a degree in film studies is cool and all, I wouldn't have really been all that happy doing anything else, but at the time unless you wanted to to move to one of the coasts (I didn't) there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity. Additionally, my focus wasn't production, which kind of just sealed the deal. So after about 9 months I finally got a job in social services, which is cool because I have always wanted to help people anyway.

So yeah, I wanted to start this blog because I just really like writing about film. I don't know why it took so much convincing, but I am going to do it. Also, I had a cool name for it (which, if anyone knows why the blog is so entitled, comment, or just know that I give you props). Also, I thought of a pretty cool pseudonym (again if you know where it is from kudos). If you plan to read more posts, I hope you like parenthesis and run on sentences, because you are probably going to get a lot of them.

Thanks for reading, and keep watching.